


best of the best

by weekend_conspiracy_theorist



Series: In the Bowels of the Ship [2]
Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-04-25
Packaged: 2018-10-23 18:15:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10724598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weekend_conspiracy_theorist/pseuds/weekend_conspiracy_theorist
Summary: Scotty explains how he can pick an engineer out of a crowd of seemingly identical red shirts.





	best of the best

The turnover rate of Operations ensigns on the _Enterprise_ is one of the highest in the fleet, for reasons both macabre and not. With her predilection for danger and position on the galactic frontier, the crew mourns a different security officer each day (or so it seems, sometimes); none begrudge the living who remain transfer away to less dangerous commissions, simply wish them on their way. The regular outflux of engineering officers is more bemusing (at least to everyone but the _Enterprise_ ’s Chief Engineer himself), but nonetheless--it exists.

Standing in the sickbay, running preliminary check-ups on a fresh group of red shirted officers, then, isn’t the rarest of circumstances; nor is Scotty’s uncanny ability to pick out the engineers from the crowd.

McCoy shoots him a glance, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “Naw, that one’s definitely security; see that musculature?”

Scotty whistles, quick and sharp, to pull the young woman’s attention away from the peers she’s chatting with while they patiently wait out the whirring of the nurses’ tricorders. She snaps to attention, probably fresh from the Academy, and out of the corner of his eye he sees McCoy hide a smile by glowering down at a tricorder he doesn’t even have turned on. “Engineering or security, ensign...?”

“Randers, sir, and engineering!” she declares cheerfully. “Looking forward to working with you, sir!”

“You, too, lassie,” Scotty says, waving her back to her friends, and clasps his hands behind his back with a smug grin as McCoy gives an exasperated huff.

“How?” he demands, giving a good-natured prod to Scotty’s ribs with one particularly pointy elbow.

“Can’t hardly give up me secrets, can I?” He jostles McCoy right back, until he nearly knocks into a tray of hyposprays and the indomitable Nurse Chapel shoots them both a side eye. He clears his throat, feeling himself flush slightly red at the unspoken admonishment, and leans slightly in to the doctor to confess, “Most of ‘em you can guess, too, eh? The security officers have a certain bearin’ me lads ‘n’ lasses don’t. For the rest of ‘em I just look for the ring--and it’s no’ fool proof, given how archaic the tradition is, but plenty of us engineers still indulge.”

McCoy’s gives him a sly look, hands clasping behind his back as he rocks forward on the balls of his feet. “The ring?” he asks, voice as neutral as he can get it.

Scotty isn’t fooled by the doc’s attempt to play coy in regards to his curiosity, but he’s given up 90% of the gold now; may as well follow through all the way. “Aye, the ring,” he says, pulling back the collar of his uniform shirt just enough to find the fine chain and tug it up and out--McCoy’s eyebrows shoot up, watching the little silver band spin until Scotty stills it.

“I dun wear it on duty, in case I end up elbows deep in a bit o’ machinery it could catch on and take me finger with it,” he explains. “Order the rest of the department t’do the same.”

“So those giant brains of y’all’s do understand safety precautions,” McCoy mutters, dry, and Scotty shoots him a glare.

“Aye, and we use appropriate eye wear ‘n’ heavy gloves, too; unfortunately things’re frequently explodin’ around us in the middle o’ a firefight.” He pauses, then begrudgingly admits, “Though the ensigns c’n get a bit lax on protocol if I take me eyes off ‘em for too long.”

“And you and your lieutenants think you’re above all that safety mumbo jumbo when you’ve done those things a thousand times!” McCoy waves a finger in his face. “I know how you lot think, Mr. Scott, and it keeps me up at night! Your department gets so many burns and bruises--” he breaks off, eyes narrowing, and his accusatory finger flicks the ring on its chain back into motion. “You’re distracting me.”

“I think you’re distractin’ yerself, Doc,” Scotty teases, “but I’ll forgive ya the accusation.” He winks, and McCoy rolls his eyes but waves him on. “It’s a centuries old tradition--started in civil, me thinks, but over time spread t’ most the disciplines. See, there was a bridge, ‘n’ the engineers on the project dinnit do their duty properly. Hard t’ say if it were negligence through carelessness or hubris, but the end result was th’ same either way.”

Scotty spins the ring himself this time, heaving a sigh. “People died. So other engineers who saw what happened made ‘emselves rings out o’ the same grade steel as that bridge ‘n’ wore ‘em on the li’l fingers o’ their dominant hands, so they remembered those lost lives every time they went t’ sign off on a project, ‘n’ they’d stop ‘n’ make sure they did their jobs right.”

He tucks the ring back under his shirt, smoothing it with one hand, and quirks a smile at McCoy. “You and your department dinnit think you were th’ only ones with the crew’s lives in their hands every day, eh?”

“How could I, with Jim up on the bridge, directing us through those firefights you were complaining about?” McCoy quips, but he squeezes Scotty’s shoulder as if to say _I never thought about it quite that way before_.

“I take me job awful serious,” Scotty offers, more quietly. “It’s why s’many transfer out; I expect the world of ‘em, ‘n’ they find out quick if they can’t cut it.”

“That why the ones who get promoted to lieutenant are always in demand from other ships, too?” the doctor asks, shrewdly, and Scotty beams.

“Aye, lad! We’re the best o’ the best on the _Enterprise_ , and no one’d dare forget it.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is a real tradition, at least for civil engineers in the US--I had a professor tell a story one time about a guy coming up to him in the airport because he picked him out as an engineer when he saw the ring. (Honestly, I expect the Order of the Engineer ceremony to mean more to me than my actual graduation.) I don't honestly know if other disciplines or other countries do this, but even if they don't, it certainly could've spread by the 23rd century, and it's a good vessel for explaining why I'm so emotional about the engineering department right now


End file.
